Question 1

Does the stock heat-sink & fan work?

Accepted Answer

Works great in both regular and low profile case.  We are building these in antec vesa mount cases & the stock cooler fits fine.  Temperatures stay low as well.

Question 2

which mainboard should  i buy with this apu.i dont wanna have that bios update issue??

Accepted Answer

"Which mainboard should I buy with this?" is the wrong question.  The right question would be something like, "I've done a lot of shopping and I like the features available in Manufacturer X Model Number Y, but how do I tell if that mainboard is compatible with this CPU?"

The answer to the right question is answered by looking up answers to the following questions (the answer to 1 should be listed in the product specs by whoever sells it, while the answer to 2 is usually only found by looking on the mobo manufacturer's own website and support documentation on that device):

1)  Does the mobo support socket AM4?

2)  Does the mobo's firmware revision support AMD Raven Ridge architecture?

When the new line of Raven Ridge CPUs released in February, every board on the market where the answer to 1 was "yes" had the answer "no" to 2, but if you stuck to mainstream brands then there was a footnote that you could download a BIOS update to perform the install if you had a supported CPU and also a discrete graphics card available.

6 months later it's almost inconceivable that any manufacturer is still shipping mobos with incompatible firmware, but it's more than likely that any given seller would still have the older models backstocked in warehouses.  So even if you bought any particular Model Y by Manufacturer X then what you get might have BIOS Revision 1.0 instead of 22.1 (or whatever that particular board needs to support Raven Ridge).

What you need to look out for when buying an AM4 mobo for a Raven Ridge CPU is the phrase:  "Ryzen 2000 Ready" in the specifications, on the box, or in the marketing spiel.  All the Raven Ridge CPUs fall into AMD’s “Ryzen 2000 Series.”

Question 3

Does this CPU come with pre-applied thermal paste?

Accepted Answer

The included heat sink does come with thermal compound applied.

Question 4

Is this compatible with the MSI PERFORMANCE GAMING B450 GAMING PLUS AM4 AMD B450 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1 HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard?

Accepted Answer

Ryzen 3 2200G is AM4 socket. When this chip first came out  there was a problem with some motherboards not having the latest BIOS but that was over a year ago.. If your BIOS is up to date, you shouldn't have a problem.  I use this proc in my budget gaming system and it works great with my Radean RX580

Question 5

Im planning on using an M.2 with this cpu to go with either a B-450i or an X-470i. Am i going to have issues with the M.2?

Accepted Answer

Just make sure the specific M.2 is compatible with your motherboard. You should be able to go to the MB site and DL the manual and compatibility info. I have two PCs and  a laptop with a M.2 and no problems. Leave all other hard drives unplugged when you install the OS. I would suggest W10 as W7 drivers may not be available. Linux or other, check with the MB site.

Question 6

I just built a pc for the kids to play fortnite battle royale. Would the on board graphics be better than an old gtx260 card?

Accepted Answer

If it is truly an old gtx 260 then yes the onboard will definitely be better than that card.   get at least 16gb of ram tho if you want to game on it as the onboard will use system memory rather than dedicated gfx memory on a add in card. this 16gb  of faster frequency ram and you have a solid budget 1080p system for low - mid setting on fortnite. also you can then add in a more powerful gpu latter.

Question 7

How can I tell what generation this processor is?

Accepted Answer

1st Gen was 1000 series and this is 2000 series. The newest ones are 3000 series.

Question 8

Will the 2200G be stable with LinuxMint or other Linux distro's? Not really keen on buying a new mobo and CPU just to go back to Windows. Thanks for any info.

Accepted Answer

AMD Vega Official Drivers are embedded in the baseline Linux Kernel as of version 4.12.  Know your distro and know its kernel version and you can find out anything else you ever need to know.

Beyond that, in 32-bit Operating Systems this APU exposes the full x86 instruction set.  In 64-bit Operating Systems this APU exposes the full amd64 instruction set.  The built-in graphics adapter exposes generic VGA instruction sets with PCI access just like any other GPU.  So yes, except in some extreme/obsolete cases this processor will work fine with any legitimate Operating System.

Question 9

Does this processor allow overclocking?

Accepted Answer

It's an unlocked processor but you need a B or X series motherboard to overclock it.  This CPU with an A series motherboard will not allow overclocking.

Question 10

Specs have this ram at a max speed of 2933. Does this mean i can't use 3200 rated memory?

Accepted Answer

Short answer is that you can use 3200 memory in your system. The long answer is that you you most likely won't get your motherboard and the Ryzen 2 2200G to operate at that speed for a number of reasons too complex to address here. Save your money and get 2133 memory. If you plan to manually overclock, then good luck. Achieving 2933 speeds will be a challenge. If you are using a PCI-e graphics card, you will see very little difference lower and higher speed RAM. Hope that helps.

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